Warm feelings

So last night sitting at a cafe after church, my friend described his first visit to church as "warm feelings."

I love this. Warm, fuzzy feelings but without all the annoying, confusing fuzz. Just warm.

A friend of mine who is also abroad said she heard that November is the hardest month in a year abroad. But as the weather is getting genuinely cold at night, and a winter cozyness is somewhat in the air, I'm feeling some lovely warm feelings.

You all know I love this city, but this city isn't just a city anymore. This city has embraced me, folded me up in her arms. I have found a belonging and a contentment as part of this world that I haven't felt in awhile. But its not the city, its not the crisp air or adorable skinny Egyptian men in their adorable little turtleneck and cable knit sweaters. Its not the smell of roasting carmelized sweet potatoes on the street carts or sitting in a patch of sunlight in Al-Azhar park overlooking a man-made lake, thousands of years of mosques and a crusader fortress before you.

Indeed the warmest feelings that I have felt in awhile was walking to the metro, kicking myself for not having a jacket tonight, shivering and eating ice cream. After six hours straight of pouring my heart and mind as thoroughly as possible into my current seven total amazingly wonderful students, my oldest student, an extremely hard-working mother of two / computer programming teacher wanted to buy me dessert. I got nescafe (mmm fake Egyptian coffee) icecream. Wow.

As she turned into her alleyway to go up to her apartment she of course invited me in even though she had just complained about how she could barely keep her eyes open one more minute. I of course declined, fondly smiled and shook her hand, I'll see her in three days, and I am supremely happy about that. As I freeze to death walking to the metro eating nescafe watered down ice cream with chunks of ice in it, I can't help but think this is the best, happiest ice cream I have ever had. None of this thermostat heated strip mall Golden Spoon crap. I am thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying this, the group of teenage boys attempting to block my path and follow me doesn't even phase me today.

And I am beginning to experience how little contentment has to do with comfort. Or maybe that it does have something to do with it but (forgive my Soc language) its an inverse relationship. The harder that it is for me to get coffee ice cream, true the more I appreciate the coffee ice cream when I get it. But not only that, the anticipation of someday having coffee ice cream is also much more sweet. And not only that, but coffee ice cream has no sweetness in itself.

Here is where the sweetness and the warmth of my life comes from: people. I now have my people. I have old friends, all over the world and here in Cairo. I have students that I haven't seen in months showing up in my life. I actually kissed my male friend on the cheek in the middle of the street in downtown Cairo (talk about scandal) I was so happy to see him when he showed up unexpectedly as a "surprise."

I was sitting in church with my Egyptian "brothers" to my left, they are completely out of their comfort zone but wanting to see how and where we worship, my American "sisters" to my right and in front of me, and our whole congregation singing hymns together in the soft yellow light. I have memories here, I have continuity, I have people here, right here in the pew next to me. And I love them all to death. And we know each other. The hardest part of moving here was feeling like I couldn't trust anyone because I didn't know anyone, and that no one really knew me. But now, over the stretched out minutes of laughter and annoyance and mosque and church and traveling and working, we have built something that I can stand on, that I trust to hold my weight. Warm feelings, not really fuzzy at all, very clear and very warm.

Like the collection of pashminaish scarves I now wear every day. They're not fuzzy and itchy, just warm. But they are the warmest when I just get them back from my friend A borrowing them, or when I somehow manage to wrap them around both my and my roommate's neck in a very awkward two headed scarf monster huddled for warmth kind of way.

Walking around Al-Azhar park with my friend F. She asks me, "how can American people be unhappy? To tell you the truth we think they took all the money, all the beauty, all the power, and even all the ability to help other people. Egypt said they chose religion instead of these things, but we don't even have that, we are getting worse in morals. We -- what's the verb again? -- envy America. The whole country envies the whole country. So how can Americans be unhappy? They have money and food and an easy life." I tell her I think they're lonely, they can be surrounded by people and wealth and still be lonely. She asks why the government doesn't make a law that children stay with their parents when they grow up, then people wouldn't be lonely. I say its not that easy. Its a matter of tradition, not of law, and those things don't change so quickly. Besides, its not about people being there, its an attitude, an attitude of independence and needing to be on your own, even when surrounded by people.

She agrees this might be it but then she has her own idea. "I heard this story that this boy who got all the money in the world, got the girl that he wanted to marry and did everything he wanted with her whenever he wanted, he got everything that he wanted but then he had nothing to look forward to so he committed suicide. He had nothing else to want or work for and so had no point to live. I think Allah knows we need the rules to keep us from taking everything we think we want."

If you gain everything but forfeit your soul, what have you gained? I realize that not getting what I want when I want it has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, as cheesy at it sounds. But its not just that God knows what's best for me, its that God knows that not being able to have exactly what you want sets you free to pursue other things that matter more, and set you free to really see what is around you without always thinking how you can get more, because its not an option. Kudos to those who can moderate themselves, but for me it seems I must put myself somewhere that forces this from me. Here, the lies of needing to be completely self-sufficient and of materialism and taking the easy path can fade away because they aren't possible.

And the ice cream was delicious because, and the unusually warm fall day and the sunlight reflecting off the water was so beautiful because, and the murmuring voices of three girls with the wafting smell of burnt grilled cheese filling up the apartment was the warmest, most amazing sound and smell I could hope for because I know these people. Because I am no longer indifferent to my surroundings, because I have been folded into my life here in an embrace that I love almost just for the reason that its stifling and smelly and awkward, a too familiar strange relative. Because I know that there is not a thing I can do to escape this Egyptian mother bear hug short of my own volition. I nestled myself in here, and materialism and self-sufficiency and self-consciousness and fear of rejection have no place in an Egyptian mother's bear hug.

And I know I go through these ups and downs, feeling like Cairo is giving me a massive bear hug and feeling like Cairo would just give me the boot if I didn't speak such a damn useful language and distract their men from harassing their own women. But for now I am content. I am content being me, with all the privileges and disadvantages that come with being a white girl in this city. Yes people stare at me and yell at me and make judgments based on my every move, but on the bright side there's no way to bring more attention to myself than I already have and I can't control wrong assumptions of those who aren't willing to see or hear me as I truly am, might as well run around in the street, might as well wear bright orange pajama pants with fish on them around the neighborhood, might as well ask random merchants how to cook their crispy bread, might as well show off how much I suck at Arabic. Yes I'm a foreigner, yes I do have some moral standards despite that fact, yes I'm odd, yes I'm a 22 years old girl living in a strange country without her family, yes I'm human, yes I'm happy.

Ilhamdulilah